“Okay first of all, Sean, who the hell are you to talk about building a WordPress business? You have websites, guy… not a business.”

I know. Shut up.

Anyway, what kind of businesses thrive in the WordPress space is something that has been on my mind lately. It’s pretty clear to me what works long-term, what’s constantly part of the “hot or not” game, and what no one cares about at all.

For those of you who are developers like me and work at a computer for hours upon hours every day, what’s your desk setup? Are you standing? Sitting in a badass chair? Using an exercise ball? Walking around the room vocalizing code while your assistant types it?

I thought about something as I prepared to publish a tweet about my newfound habit of lurking around the WordPress support forums to help out.

Helping other people out is kind of my thing. All it takes is a quick browse through Build WordPress Yourself or SDavis Media to see that I don’t mind breaking things down for perfect strangers.

It’s not totally one-sided, though. I’ve learned a lot by dedicating my time to other people’s unique situations… and that’s what I just realized today. I’ve had two specific time periods where my skill level clearly jumped a level or two.

This is not my first time leaving. I left a few years ago, too. Then, I owned a Facebook Page that I continued to maintain. Back then you could do that. However, many restrictions were placed on the Page admin that I interpreted as punishment for not having a personal profile. So I came back. That’s the profile most of you were friends with.

This time around, I don’t have a Facebook Page [that I care about]. I have a Facebook Group – Health & Fitness Collaborators. In this context, the difference between a Page and a Group is that the Group will not just delete itself when I leave. It would either be passed on to other admins or go to the most active members.

Andrew was HF Collab’s only admin besides me. That means the group belongs to him now. He is free to do whatever he chooses with it. For as long as it exists, I am more than willing to be active here in the community. Obviously, I just won’t be active on Facebook.

That’s all I’ve got, folks! Leave a comment below if you have words for me. Also, I’d be more than willing to connect with you all on Twitter, Instagram, or Google+.

Honestly, I don’t know if I’m talking to everyone or just myself. It doesn’t really matter, though. Every developer needs to go back and look at his or her old code if it’s still in use and supported.

I don’t know about you all but I code something every damn day. That means I learn something new every damn day. While not everything I learn requires a change in the way I do things, the culmination of things learned over time change the way I approach code.

I go back and look at some of my old code and have no choice but to switch it up a bit. It’s not only because I don’t like my old approaches, but also because I’m still supporting that old code.

Why create more work for myself in support? Why maintain funky knowledge when it can be a thing of the past? It just doesn’t make sense to ignore.

If your overall setup can afford to be updated without a bunch of customers protesting outside of your development shop, go back, look at your old code, and make sure it’s what you would have written today if you had the same tasks.

You’re only making things better for everyone and you’re getting more coding reps in.

Woopty-fucking-doo, right? I know. Screw you for agreeing… but I know.

I’ve been hanging around WordPress for a while now. From tweaking frameworks to freelancing web design to building standalone themes and now shifting focus to plugins, I like growing in this space.

Just recently I decided to launch a new site called Build WordPress Yourself (BWPY). I wanted to launch with two themes and a plugin. None of them existed when I came up with the plan so I had to create them.

I had a lot of motivation for creating the plugin. I actually needed to use it on BWPY so it was being built no matter what.

Yes, it’s true. I have approximately 46 million websites… give or take a few.

I have another one to introduce you to. It’s called “Build WordPress Yourself.” It’s 100% dedicated to building websites with WordPress. Though I talk a lot about building WordPress themes, I also speak on plugins and general WordPress usage.

One of the cool things about about this site is I’m making it an all-around resource for those who build websites with WordPress. I offer free and paid downloads as well as make recommendations for WordPress related products that I think are useful.

Personally, I think it’s an awesome idea for you to go check it out and tell me what you think about it. That’s the best idea I’ve ever come up with, actually. Do it.

Here’s the thing… my very first standalone project on WordPress was a freakin’ framework. It was born out of the idea that if I’d be customizing sites for people, it made sense to have a starting point tailored to my style of development.

So I’m very familiar with the idea of doing something once and using it repeatedly to save time and promote consistency throughout my work. And that’s what’s going on here now.

2014 is not the first theme I’ve given the EDD treatment to. I did, however, finally notice that I was doing the same work over and over again for each integration. In fact, I was copying and pasting my own code everywhere I could from theme to theme.

If you’ve been around me in the WordPress community for more than about 15 seconds, you probably know that I’m a big fan of Easy Digital Downloads, the world’s easiest way to sell digital downloads through WordPress.

You’d also know that I like to build WordPress themes. So it’s no surprise that integrating themes with Easy Digital Downloads is kind of my thing… or at least it’s beginning to be.

I recently decided to give WordPress’ Twenty Fourteen theme the EDD treatment which includes a special sidebar, a grid-style store front/archives template, and multiple page templates. I did all of this in a free child theme so it’s 100% customizable.

If you’re into free stuff, EDD, not reinventing the wheel when it comes to WordPress themes, and my work, head on over to the Github repo and grab a copy.